Animal Welfare
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

A big change that happened with this Government, which was laid out in the programme for Government, is that all of the various elements of dog control have been centralised from previously being across three Departments, including in the former Department of Rural and Community Development. The programme for Government committed to taking this element from that Department and bringing it back to the Department of agriculture because we have responsibility for animal welfare. Local authorities are the employers of dog wardens and have the system in place. We work really closely together with them. I do not see an impediment to how we move forward and improve things further with the current structure.
The dog stakeholder group was set up under the previous Government by the previous Minister at the Department of rural affairs. It has a body of work to do, which it has almost completed. There will be legislative change coming out of its proposals and I look forward to receiving its report. I am not waiting for that in the meantime. I will bring the heads of a Bill to Cabinet imminently to improve welfare standards and strengthen enforcement in relation to dog breeding establishments. I am continuing this work because animal welfare and the protection of our dogs are so important.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14